Two Azerbaijani citizens were injured in a mine blast in the part of the Khojaly region that was liberated in last year’s war with Armenia.
The mine had been planted by Armenian forces during the years of occupation since 1990s.
The Khojaly District Prosecutor’s Office said that the blast occurred on July 21.
The citizens who were blown up by the mine – Tahir Mahmudov and Yasin Mehraliyev – were employees of a company conducting construction work in the district.
Over 120 Azerbaijanis have been killed or injured in mine explosions in the country’s liberated lands since November 2020.
Armenia planted hundreds of thousands of land mines in Azerbaijani territories it held under its control since the war in the 1990s. Some 140 Azerbaijani citizens were killed or injured in mine blasts in and around Nagorno-Karabakh since Azerbaijan regained control over its territories in the war in autumn 2020.
Initially, Armenia refused that such mines existed. However, it handed Baku the maps of landmines in Aghdam, Fuzuli and Zangilan regions in June in exchange for Armenian prisoners kept in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on February 26 described Armenia’s failure to provide the maps of mined areas in liberated lands as the main difficulty for Azerbaijani IPDs to return to their homes. He said that this can also be considered to be a war crime as several servicemen and civilians were killed in mine blasts on liberated territories after the war.
